


Across the Galaxy

by kgirl1



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-02 22:44:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13327965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kgirl1/pseuds/kgirl1
Summary: It doesn't matter if it's a nightmare or a vision; they're torturing her either way. But Ezra doesn't need to know that. Post Rebel Assault.





	Across the Galaxy

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This takes place after the episode Rebel Assault. Given the structures we’ve seen on the southern hemisphere of Lothal, I envision the crew sleeping in tiny, individual caves (think one size above hovels) within a larger cave that are curtained off for privacy. I think it makes sense whether the rebels are on the south side of the planet, since those caves looked at least somewhat developed, or back at their original base, and just pressed for space. I hope having that image in your head will help this make a little more sense.

Kanan shot awake, breathing hard. His hair grazed the cave ceiling as he flew up from his pallet, and he gasped for air, his panicked breaths rupturing the silence of night. Sweat ran in rivulets down his back, and his heart pounded hard enough to burst from his ribcage.

He was used to waking up in the dark, but now he felt like it was closing in on him, the silence of the cave a living straitjacket. Instinctively he reached out for Hera, remembering the second he moved his hand that she wouldn’t be there. His skin was crawling, his palms were slick, and each breath he took was as shaky as the last. He sat there, chest heaving and blind eyes darting madly around the cave, as he tried without success to calm himself down.

“Kanan?” Ezra’s voice came muffled from outside his door, and anxiety jolted in his stomach. “You okay?”

Kanan took a shaky breath and cleared his throat. “I’m fine.”

It sounded like a lie even to his own ears.

“You sure?” He could feel his apprentice hovering in front of the curtain.

“Ezra, I’m fine,” Kanan said, and clenched his fingernails into his palms to convince himself of it. His hands were shaking.

Outside the cave was silence, but not absence. He sensed the boy wavering, shifting from foot to foot. There was something in his Force signature that kept trying to reach out to Kanan, only to shrink back.

“You were dreaming about Hera,” Ezra finally said, making it sound like a question. Kanan’s skin prickled with apprehension, but then he heaved a sigh.

“Yeah, Ezra,” he said. “Yeah, I was.”

Another quiet shuffle, as Ezra wafted from one foot to the other.

“Can… can I come in?”

Admitting the nightmare had taken some of the pressure off his chest, and Kanan finally took a deep, clear breath. He raised his hand, and the curtain between them lifted. Fully exposed to Kanan’s Force sight, Ezra seemed smaller, his shoulders heavy as he entered the room. Kanan moved over, gesturing to his pallet, and Ezra sat down next to him.

“I felt it. In the Force,” he said quietly. He didn’t look at Kanan as he spoke. “What happened?”

Kanan heard his voice in his ears, hoarse and taut, before he realized he’d decided to speak. “They were torturing her.”

Ezra seemed to shrink even further into himself. “I was worried you’d say that.”

Kanan was silent, both lacking words of comfort and too tired to search for them. Ezra pulled his knees into his chest.

“Do you… do you think it was a vision?” He asked. “Like, do you think it was real? Or just a nightmare?”

Kanan could hear the hope in the boy’s voice, fragile and thin as frost. The truth was that it didn’t matter—they _were_ torturing Hera, whether he dreamed about it or not.

But Ezra didn’t need to know that.

“It was just a nightmare,” he said, feeling sick as the lie grew. “They won’t torture Hera. She’s too important.”

Ezra was so silent that Kanan checked for his presence in the Force.

When the boy finally spoke, his voice was small. “Are you lying?”

The question sent a chill down his back, and Kanan’s stomach twisted with guilt. He didn’t dare confirm it, but his silence spoke more than words could have. The air between them shifted.

“Don’t _do_ that.” Ezra’s tone changed, and he turned to Kanan accusatorily. “You don’t have to protect me—”

“It’s not just you I’m protecting, Ezra.” Kanan’s voice rose. He clenched his teeth. The silence between them thrummed with tension, and it swelled oppressively, until Kanan was sure his Padawan would storm out.

Ezra just heaved a sigh.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

Kanan exhaled. “Me too.”

He heard Ezra scraping the dirt floor. “Kanan?” He asked.

“Yeah, Ezra?”

His Padawan’s voice was small. “Will we get her back?”

Kanan felt something break deep within his chest at the question. He took a deep breath before answering.

“You’ll get her back.”

Ezra’s head whipped toward him with alarm; the pronoun change had been unmistakable.

“Kanan—”

Kanan lifted his hand. “It’s late. You should get some sleep.”

“But Kanan—”

“Sleep,” he said firmly. He could feel anxiety pulsing from his Padawan like a heartbeat, but Ezra said no more. He stood so slowly and woodenly that Kanan thought he might creak.

Ezra hesitated just before the door. “Kanan?”

“Yeah?”

“If you have any more nightma—… I mean, if you can’t sleep or anything… I’m right next door.”

Despite himself, Kanan felt the corners of his lips tug up. “Thanks, Ezra.”

“Yeah. No problem.” Ezra ducked under the curtain and slipped out, and just like that, his room was cold again. Involuntarily, Kanan felt his hands begin to tremble, and he consciously blocked himself off from Ezra’s mind. Hera’s cries rang fresh in his ears—every time he closed his eyes he saw electricity crackling across her body, blades piercing her lekku, indigo blood dripping onto the floor. Kanan shuddered and shifted into a meditative position, hoping to stave off the nightmare.

* * *

Across the galaxy, Hera Syndulla glared at Arihnda Pryce, her view half-obscured by a swollen eye. Blood trickled from her lekku, but she couldn’t remember the last time they’d cut her there; specific wounds had long since dissolved into the blur of torture, and her body no longer held a map of the inflictions so much as a dull, constant ache.

“One way or another, we’ll get the answers we seek,” Pryce said, regarding the twi’lek with ice in her voice. “You only suffer for your pride.”

Hera was silent save her eyes, which blazed with defiance.

“Very well,” Pryce sighed. “I’ll ask again, for formality’s sake. Where is the location of the rebel base?”

Hera kept her face blank, meeting Pryce’s gaze dead-on. The human woman’s eye twitched, and she reached for the control panel.

Bolts of electricity streaked across Hera’s body, and her back arched clear off the table as a cry burst from her lips.

Across the galaxy, caught in the shadows between sleep and nightmare, Kanan Jarrus clenched his fists.


End file.
